🔥 Exciting news 🔥

Now you can share files and media in Cordn, and it is end-to-end encrypted. Also messages can now be pinned to the top of the chat. ✨

We added a new application spec to Cordn that defines how to encrypt and decrypt media for the chat. A photo or document is sealed on your device before it ever leaves, with a key derived from the group's own shared session, and only members can derive the same key to unlock it. The coordinator and the storage layer only ever see opaque bytes. They can store and relay the file, but they can't read it.

For storage, the default is Blossom, though the spec doesn't mandate it. That keeps Cordn aligned with the Nostr ecosystem's media layer while leaving room for other backends. The practical size limit for a file comes from whatever server you choose.

In the web app you can now upload and share files and media straight into your groups. You can configure which servers Cordn uses for uploads, and we ship a curated list of Blossom servers that are friendly to opaque encrypted bytes.

Any media link you paste into a message also renders inline now, so an image or video URL shows up as a preview instead of a bare link. And under Config → Media you can choose whether images and avatars load automatically, useful on a metered connection.

The second feature is pinned messages for groups. Anyone in a group can pin a message, and pinned ones gather in a carousel at the top of the chat. Jump straight to any of them, or open the full list to see them all and unpin. Each pin shows who pinned it.

A lot of media polish landed alongside:

• Tap any image to open it full-screen: zoom in or out (even past 100%), drag to pan, double-tap to fit, and save a copy.
• Download any shared file or image straight from its message menu.
• Media you've opened stays loaded when you scroll away and come back.
• Links, mentions, and previews now render in the message info panel too, not just in the chat.
• Avatars and banners respect your "load avatars" choice everywhere: chat bubbles, profile cards, and the group and direct-message list.

The complete list is available at https://cordn.net/chat/news

Aren't you using Cordn yet? Just start chatting at https://cordn.net/

If you like the project and want to see it grow, please consider contributing in any way you can. Every bit counts, report a bug, contribute with your expertise, send some sats. We are building this together in the open 💛

Encrypted media spec: https://github.com/Cordn-msg/cordn/blob/master/spec/applications/encrypted-media.md